BWW Reviews: THE PITMEN PAINTERS, The National Theatre, February 3 2010

Back in the 1970s, Jimmy Reid, firebrand leader of the striking Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, stood before 4,000 of his members in a mass meeting and prepared to introduce the main speaker, Sir Roger Bannister, record breaker, eminent neurologist and graduate of Merton College Oxford. As Bannister moved towards the microphone, Reid hissed from the side of his mouth, "How many four-minute-milers in here then, eh?"

The question of what could be achieved by the masses of proletarian men whose lives were dedicated to building and then maintaining the United Kingdom's industrial economy is at the heart of Lee Hall's The Pitmen Painters, adapted from William Feaver's book. The co-production between the National Theatre and Live Theatre, Newcastle, traces the development of The Ashington Group, from its formation in the hungry thirties to the bright new dawn of the post-war Welfare State. With projections of many paintings (and a splendid turn when Ian Kelly, as Roger Lyon, the group's tutor, "Rolf Harrises" a perfect replica of his real life counterpart's portrait of Oliver Kilbourn, the closest the Group come to having a leader), there's a temptation to wonder what all the fuss is about, especially when one or two van Goghs are displayed in all their glory. But the play isn't really about Art, it's about opportunities.

Hall compresses the Group into four men whom we first meet awaiting the arrival of their tutor in a draughty scout hut, never having seen a painting in their lives, believing that art, like the rulebooks they quote to each other, is concerned with the communication of meaning. There's recognisable stereotypes on show and some truly execrable banter ("It's a Titian." "Bless you!"), but the tongue-tied and education-starved men are soon painting from the heart, mixing with patrons and artists and discussing the power of abstract art. After the interval, the laughs dry up, as Hall opts too often for his characters to speechify rather than to converse. Opportunities are taken and others declined, as the Group and its mentor and patron follow different paths, culminating in the dawn of the Welfare State and the idealism felt so strongly by the millions of working men and women who voted for Clement Atlee's brave new world.  

Back at the National Theatre after a UK and Ireland tour, the play is still selling out the Lyttleton on a Tuesday night in February, so it's undoubtedly a crowdpleaser, but this reviewer felt that there was just a bit too much sentimentalising of one aspect of working-class life - the thirst for self-improvement through education. I don't deny that it's there - my father, after retiring from thirty years' work as a panel beater acquired O-levels in English Language and English Literature, shyly asking his college-boy son questions about the Capulets and Montagues - but working-class angst isn't solely concerned with the dignity of labour and there was as much backbiting and scheming amongst those who stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the capitalist oppressors as there was amongst academics wondering if commissions for murals from Essex County Council is all life has to offer. The over-long second half didn't quite finish with a written reminder that New Labour amended Clause Four of the Labour Party's constitution to bury forever the idealism of Keir Hardie, nor with a slightly haphazard singing the miners' Gresford Hymn, but with a photograph of three stooped old men outside a hut above the door of which was an improvised sign, "The Ashington Art Club". I'd have liked to have learned more about the men and less about the playwright's view of art, politics and history, but that is the artist's decision and not the audience's and that, as Oliver Kilbourn discovered when faced with his choice, is the way it should be.  

 

 

To post a comment, you must register and login.